ISC Social Diversity Survey

A common perception of independent schools is that they are populated entirely by a privileged elite. This belief has provided, for example, the ostensible justification for the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) to use attendance at an independent school as a proxy for privilege when setting university benchmarks for widening access to higher education.

Independent schools have always argued that there are many children within the sector whose parents are not wealthy, and who are able to attend because of bursaries or because their parents are prepared to make sacrifices to prioritise their children's education. Indeed, for these children the sector acts as a facilitator for social mobility.

The publication of this report is the first thorough analysis of demographic information based on parents' postcodes. The analysis was undertaken using ACORN software from CACI - a demographic analysis tool used both by the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), HESA and numerous local authorities.